


Mirror Image

by chibi_zoe



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 10:11:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi_zoe/pseuds/chibi_zoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kakashi and Iruka are fighting, Iruka doesn’t know why and Kakashi can’t seem to tell him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Image

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Reflections of our Mistakes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/835528) by [radkoko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radkoko/pseuds/radkoko). 



Title: Mirror Image  
Author: chibi-zoe  
Rating: G  
Pairing: Kakashi x Iruka  
Summary: Kakashi and Iruka are fighting, Iruka doesn’t know why and Kakashi can’t seem to tell him.

**Mirror Image**

“Why don’t you just tell him?” Kakashi said to the mirror. His reflection looked him right in the eye and said nothing.

“I know.” Kakashi said anyway. “But it was the last thing I had of my Mother’s.” His reflection looked accusingly at him. 

“How could he have not known that the tea bowl was important?” Kakashi continued. “Why else would I have kept an obviously broken thing _right there_?” His reflection had no words of sage advice to give him, no disparaging remarks to make about his poor behaviour, not even a simple suggestion that he really should shave sometime soon.

** -- ** -- **

“I thought that the mission would help me.” Kakashi whispered to his reflection in the still pool of water. “I thought that if I vented my anger, it would make things easier.” His reflection looked around the clearing, checking and double-checking if anyone was nearby. There wasn’t.

“But with every sip of tea I have, I remember what he did, how he just carelessly threw it out. How I didn’t even notice for three days.” This time his reflection looked slightly astonished at his words. 

“That’s what hurts the most,” he admitted, “that he did that horrible thing and I didn’t even notice straight away. I loved him, teased him and laughed with him, all while the last memento of my mother was crushed with the trash.”

“I should have explained things to him,” he continued, “but I just couldn’t get the words out. I love him, but this hurts so much.”

** -- ** -- **

“What am I going to do?” Kakashi said to his upside down reflection in the spoon. “I’ll be back at the village tomorrow and I have to hand in my report. He’s going to be there and everyone will expect that I’ll want to hand my report straight to him.”

He used his spoon to scoop up another few mouthfuls of the nutritious if rather tasteless gloop he had found in his ration pack and been hoping to avoid, and licked it clean.

“You’re right.” He said, “Iruka’s queue _is_ always the longest. If I look like I had a hard mission, no one will question why I chose the shortest queue.”

** -- ** -- **

Sitting in the closed lid of the toilet, Kakashi stared at the image of himself reflected in the porcelain tiles. “Who would’ve guessed that Iruka would’ve had the shortest queue? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen. And to think that I’d written up my report properly too, just to make it look like he always overreacts.”

He unwound his leg wraps slowly, gathering up the various small and nasty items he had stashed there.

“He called out to me and I had to go over, it would’ve looked suspicious if I hadn’t. I couldn’t meet his eyes.” Standing up, he pulled his shirt off over his head and threw it in the hamper. “He tried to stop me leaving. Actually tried to grab my arm and stop me leaving.” His reflection shook his head in wonder.

“Yes, seeing him again did make me miss him, but I’m still so angry. I can’t stop wondering what else he’ll throw away thinking that he doesn’t need it anymore.”

** -- ** -- **

“I should go and see him.” Kakashi said, a dozen tiny reflections staring back at him from the kunai on the table. “It’s lonely without him.”

** -- ** -- **

“I was wrong.” He said to the bathroom mirror. “My chest still aches so badly when I look at him.”

“No I didn’t go to his house, I just saw him walking down the street.” Kakashi slathered shaving foam on his cheeks and chin. 

“He looks good, healthy, not like he’s suffering because I’m not there.” He slowly drew the razor down one pale cheek. “It’s like he doesn’t even notice my absence.” 

He rinsed the razor in the sink. “Not the way that I notice _his_.”

** -- ** -- **

“I told him.” Kakashi said very deliberately to his reflection on the side of the stainless steel kettle. “It wasn’t something that I planned to do, it just came out.” 

He made himself a cup of tea, the bowl nothing like his mothers’, and moved to sit on the couch. His reflection appeared on the screen of the unplugged TV in the corner of the room.

“I went there to tell him about my mission, I didn’t want him to find out about it from someone else; despite what he did he deserves that much from me.”

“He was angry,” Kakashi said after a few minutes of silence. “He wanted me to pull out of the mission.” His reflection look appropriately outraged. 

“Then he said that he didn’t know why I was so angry with him over throwing out a broken bowl.” He put his tea on the coffee table, worried that he was going to spill it. “Then I told him – I said ‘that broken bowl you threw out…It was my mothers’. I expected him to say something, but I didn’t expect him to lash out at me like that.”

** -- ** -- **

“I saw him again today.” Kakashi said to his reflection in the small hand-held mirror he was using to check his back for cuts and bruises. “He was talking to a squirrel. He called it Kinomi.” He stopped checking his back and met his reflections gaze for a long moment.

“No, I don’t think he’s gone off the deep end, but perhaps he’s starting to feel lonely too.”

Kakashi sat for a while, carefully dabbing antiseptic on a small cut behind his right shoulder blade. He really should know better by now than to accept a challenge from Gai when they were standing in the close vicinity of thorn thickets.

“I think that I’ll ask Pakkun to keep an eye on him while I’m away, just in case the squirrel is a summon sent to spy on us.

** -- ** -- **

“I’m sorry you had to see that.” Kakashi said to his reflection in the little cup of sake set carefully before the memorial stone. He and Iruka had met there the night before, and managed to be courteously civil to each other. He’d even smiled at something Iruka had said and unthinkingly looked up to meet his gaze. Those soft brown eyes had struck something deep inside him, reminding him of countless hours he’d spent gazing into them. It had been too much to bear and he’d coldly excused himself.

“I know I should forgive him, but I’m so scared that after I’m gone, he’ll just throw out everything of mine so that he can have his ‘clean slate’ again.” Kakashi drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s silly and petty and I know that I should just talk to him, but it’s so hard to get the words out, it’s like they stick in my throat whenever I try.”

** -- ** -- **

“It’s been a big day.” Kakashi said to his reflection in the sword blade. “Pakkun was watching that squirrel that Iruka’s been talking to when they were attacked by the missing nin. It was lucky that I was over at the house getting this,” he tapped the blade with a fingernail, “when it all went down.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “When it was all over, Iruka apologised to me.” His reflection looked caught between surprise and relief. “I apologised to him too.” Kakashi smiled beneath his mask, “I feel much better now, as if an abscess has been lanced.”

“I’m still upset, but I’ve forgiven him for what he did and I know that if I’d only been more open with him then none of this would’ve happened.”

** -- ** -- **

“Who are you talking to?” Iruka asked as he walked into the bathroom. He looked surprised to see Kakashi standing alone in the room with just a towel around his waist. 

“No-one,” Kakashi said as he slid an arm around Iruka’s bare shoulder and kissed his cheek, “just my reflection.” 

Iruka hugged him back gently and met his eyes in the mirror. “Is there any reason why you want to talk to your reflection when I’m right here?”

“I look just like my Dad.” Kakashi said slowly. “It makes me feel like I’m talking to him.”

“I’ll leave you to it then.” Iruka said with a soft smile. “I’ll wait in bed until you’re finished.” With that, Iruka gently kissed him on the lips, slipped out of his arms and left the room. Kakashi shared a grin with his reflection, his lover was such a tease.

**The End**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Mirage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/853546) by [Taudi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taudi/pseuds/Taudi)




End file.
